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  • Hello everyone, welcome to Taiwan Bar

  • Today let’s talk about Taiwan’s hard-earned democracy

  • Under the pleasant social atmosphere today . Either trash-talking on Facebook

  • or criticizing the government or voting

  • are just as easy as breathing

  • But the road to Taiwan’s democracy

  • has came a long, long way

  • It wasn’t formed by just some sunflowers or some suncake

  • To get a closer look at the history of Taiwan’s democracy

  • let’s go back to the time when Taiwan had no democracy

  • In 1949, KMT was defeated by People's Liberation Army

  • then withdrew from China to Taiwan

  • In order to make Taiwan a base to prepare forstriking back mainland China

  • KMT built a “single-party stateto consolidate its political power

  • What’s a “single-party state”?

  • We can find it in the lyrics of the national anthem of the R.O.C.

  • For example, “Three Principles of the People, the foundation of ourparty’.”

  • Party? Why not ourcountry”? Or ourpeople”? Why party? Why? WHY?

  • why...

  • Multiple Choices:

  • In the two following pictures, is the one with the bigger sun

  • A: the National emblem of the R.O.C. or

  • B: the Party emblem of KMT

  • Um, neither, mine does not have a sun

  • Congratulations! Youre very honest! Take both as a reward!

  • When a single political party is in control of the government

  • and all other parties are outlawed or take only a limited amount of positions

  • We give it the name: Single Party State

  • So, what are the terrors that Taiwanese might face under single-party state?

  • and how can Taiwanese work their way to democracy?

  • Ahem, let’s begin!

  • In 1949

  • Nationalist government announced the imposition of Taiwan martial law because it was facing trouble inside and outside of the country

  • Taiwan had gone through a period of time that

  • everything was forbidden and restricted for the public to do

  • Political party registration? No.

  • Newspaper publishing? No.

  • Demonstration or street protest? No.

  • Hot-pot and singing party at night?

  • No. No. NO.

  • And the Nationalist government, which retreated to Taiwan

  • was deeply worried about how Mao Zedong might took over Taiwan

  • So it tightened the control over Taiwanese even more

  • Criminal Code of the Republic of China Article 100

  • Act for the Control and Punishment of Rebellion

  • Espionage Act of the Republic of China

  • With these three additional laws enacted

  • and spies all around the citizens

  • arresting anyone whopossibly”, “probably”, “seemingly”, “likely”, “maybe

  • was antigovernment, a pro-communist or support Taiwan independence

  • considering them rebellions

  • Aside from that, Nationalist government also encouraged Taiwanese to rat each other out

  • If one hid a rebellion, he would be sentenced as well

  • Under thisspyingatmosphere

  • it was like there were an army of hall monitors everywhere on the island

  • making many innocent Taiwanese falsely accused

  • This tense environment caused by the government was named White Terror

  • During White Terror, the victims who were imprisoned or executed

  • were more than twenty thousand people

  • It was even more horrifying than the casualties caused by the plague during Japanese rule

  • And the number of families and friends of those victims was imponderable

  • Even Hawking had no idea

  • As early in 1947

  • Constitution of the Republic of China has gone into effect

  • But not until only after less than half a year

  • Nationalist government stated that in order to fight against Mao Zedong

  • Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellionwas put into practice

  • This not only dramatically increased the power of the president

  • but also made the Constitution of the Republic of China vanish

  • Where did the Constitution of the Republic of China go?

  • Even Hawking has no idea

  • Chinese Civil War ended in 1949

  • Nationalist government was defeated

  • however Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion had stayed strong

  • Why didn’t the defeated KMT abolish it

  • What was the exact purpose of leaving it standing?

  • What is it? What?

  • We will never know

  • Taiwan, under the period of time that we had no democracy and no freedom

  • water cannons, tear gas and armed police stood in the way of striving for democracy

  • One could be accused of breaking the law

  • ormadenot being able to break the law ever again...

  • But like a minute passes every sixty seconds

  • In the 50s

  • There were still a group of people dedicated to fight against the Nationalist government

  • Besides those who fought for democracy in the Provincial Consultative Council

  • Lei Chen was the editor-in-chief of Free China Journal The only person who dared to fight against single-party state would be the one, the only Mr. Lei Chen

  • Not only did it criticize Nationalist government severely

  • but strongly opposed to Chiang Kai-shek expanding his power

  • saying that he remained the president without election

  • WITHOUT election. WITHOUT election. WITHOUT election.

  • Highlight this people

  • These criticism of course pissed the Nationalist government off

  • so KMT took away Lei Chen’s KMT party registration

  • In 1960

  • Lei Chen wanted to form a new political party, China Democracy Party

  • Nationalist government was raving mad

  • Lei Chen, who had no KMT lucky charm

  • was accused and sentenced to ten years in prison

  • In the 70s

  • Taiwanese citizens finally started to fight against the government

  • For example, the Zhongli Incident,

  • a riot in response to voters believing that a ballot stuffing fraud happened in the election and the Kaohsiung Incident

  • These are all examples of Taiwanese, under the martial law

  • fighting against single-party state

  • Wait a sec

  • There’s something to be clarified

  • Speaking of Taiwan’s democracy

  • You might assume only the Taiwanese fought for it, right?

  • Actually besides Taiwanese,

  • foreigners made some efforts as well

  • Some of these strongest examples

  • Forced KMT to make some compromise

  • Like in 1981

  • Dr. Chen Wen-chen, a Taiwanese professor teaching in the U.S.

  • came back to Taiwan for a family visit

  • but after members of Taiwan's secret police, the Garrison Command,

  • detained and interrogated him for twelve hours

  • his body was found on the campus of National Taiwan University the next day

  • In 1984

  • Chiang Nan(Henry Liu), a Taiwanese-American author,

  • published an unauthorized biography of Chiang Ching-kuo

  • In the biography were many things which the Chiang family did not appreciate

  • As a result, Chiang Nan was assassinated by an assigned killer

  • who had been reported to be trained by R.O.C. military intelligence

  • And this incident once again

  • shocked the whole world and angered the U.S. authorities

  • Because of the pressure from foreign countries

  • Nationalist government finally had to compromise

  • Compromised how?

  • In 1987 president Chiang Ching-kuo

  • Under the pressure of democracy trend and the demands from foreign authorities

  • he not only promised that the Chiang would no longer hold power in the future

  • but also ended Taiwan martial law, which lasted for 38 years

  • Bringing Taiwan Martial Law into history

  • After Taiwan martial law was lifted,

  • these three laws mentioned above, as symbols of the White Terror

  • were still lingering

  • and infuriated Taiwanese, who had long been suppressed

  • Unacceptable violation of personal freedom happened everyday

  • Under the situation, Taiwanese were forced to fight back more aggressively

  • For example, May twentieth peasant movement, Aboriginal Land Movement and Wu Feng statue incident

  • were all shocking to the Nationalist government

  • Officers of riot control brought water cannons and tear gas out again and again

  • This road to democracy was one bumpy ride

  • In 1990, the year I was born

  • Lee Teng-hui met with the representative of the Wild Lily student movement

  • and he promised a constitutional reform act

  • Taiwan society in the 90s were slowly transforming to what it is like today

  • The three laws of the White Terror were either abolished or revised

  • Freedom of speech was gradually granted

  • and Taiwanese were able to voice their dissatisfaction

  • even if the dissatisfaction was toward the president Congressional reformation and president elections took place

  • All signs showing that Taiwan is working its way to democracy

  • After this chatty talk,

  • it seems like Taiwan has become a democratic country, doesn’t it

  • However, is Taiwan democratic enough?

  • There’s a rising number of social movements in Taiwan in recent years

  • From the way the government dealt with Sunflower Student Movement and how it ended

  • Is freedom of the Taiwanese really guaranteed?

  • How should we face the scar from the long-lasting White Terror since the 228 Incident?

  • What should we learn from the damages

  • caused by single-party state?

  • If there are no proper regulations and supervision is there a chance for single-party state to happen again?

  • A country is supposed to serve its people

  • So What are the dos and donts of a government?

  • and what are the shoulds and shouldnts?

  • The answers to these questions

  • well leave them for you to figure out

  • Okay

  • I’m thirsty after saying so much

  • After finishing this cup of millet wine, see you same time next month!

  • Da! (“Cheersin the native language of Amis)

  • Taiwan Bar is produced by DJ Hauer

  • Scripted and hosted by Buchi

  • History context provided by Thomas Xiao

  • Animated by jiajiach

  • Music produced by DJ Hauer

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Hello everyone, welcome to Taiwan Bar

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